An Exercise in Normality
by estelle.evenstar72
Summary: *Inspired by the E/O Challenge: Alert* Dean struggles with a plastic gun. Sam giggles helplessly in the background.


**A/N: Inspired by the E/O Challenge 'Alert'. Forgive my recent lack of commitment to our boys. **

Dean is poised, concentration directed down the barrel of the rifle, guided by expert hands as he sweeps the area before him over with the gravitating bullseye. He breathes laboriously, a habitual symbol of his focus. The discomforting, catching sound distractedly consumes his senses; the only recognition of life in the perpetual unknown.

The evergreen forest is shrouded in darkness, closing in ominously around him as the pathway narrows.

A keening sound cuts through the silence threateningly.

Dean draws an unsteady breath, tightens his grip on the rifle, willing himself to see through the blackness...frustrated at the damn night vision goggles limiting his scope...

"It's starting, De" Sam murmurs from his flank, arms folded, "Sure you're ready?"

Huffing in response to the feeble taunt, Dean focuses on the direction on the noise, inching slowly forward. Adrenaline thunders in his ears, his heart quickening its pace, but his harden resolve overrides the physical impulses, symptoms of fear he long ago learned to suppress.

A silvery blur of motion flashes between the trees. Dean fires instinctively, cursing as the shot rings away from the target a mile off.

"Did that thing just _cackle_ at me?"

His irritation peaks, pinching the bridge of his nose as he shakes his head, grunting in frustration.

"_SONOFABITCH!"_

Sammy giggles helplessly in the background.

"_Real mature, Lurch_", Dean thinks snidely, but maintains his game face. Because he's going to show Sam, show Sam like he has a thousand times before. _Cause College can't buy you a trigger finger that even Chuck Norris would be envious of, pretty boy!_

The moonlight paves the way, and Dean remains on the main course through the trees, treading lightly. Shifting shapes weave in and out of the highlighted treetops, and the responding show of gunfire is hardly subtle. _Damn trigger, where do they get these pieces of shit anyway? _

Dean figures he must be getting close to the bloodsucker's nest, the realisation is building pretentiously in the atmosphere around him, practically swelling in the poor light. Sam is silent; anticipating, but Dean thrives off the isolation because he is in his _element_, because he was born for this, dammit. Alert, agile, ready for the kill...

Before two of the suckers miraculously appear from thin-air right behind him, red eyes glowing hungrily, Dracula capes flapping, and converge on him.

"What the _f_...?"

"Dean!" Sam cries, bordering on hysterics.

His blood splatters in all directions, and Dean is stunned.

**GAME OVER, SUCKER** flashes repeatedly in his face.

"Dude, you're such an amateur!" Sam hollers, as Dean's startled realisation turns to fury, "You should have seen your face...you jumped like a foot in the air!"

"Don't gimme that, they ambushed me!" Dean protests defensively, "And the damn machine stole my quarter!"

Sam stares in open-mouthed as Dean proceeds to rip his 3D visor from his face, throw his plastic weapon on the ground, and lay a boot into the old arcade console for good measure before storming off in a huff. Even after all they have been through, he's not sure he's ever seen a display this mortifying in his _entire_ life.

_Cause that's a totally normal response for a grown man..._

"That's what happens when you're a _loser._" The next kid standing in the queue interjects helpfully before Sam can respond, "No need to have a cry. It's not called 'Attack of the Vampire Clan' for nothing!"

Turning slowly, Sam eyes the line of five years olds waiting impatiently behind him, before glancing after his brother's hurriedly retreating form.

An errant grin passes his lips as he races out of the rundown arcade to console his clearly developmentally challenged, sulking older brother by the Impala.

_*******_

15 miles later down the highway, out of town, no more than a disgruntled sigh has passed from Dean's lips.

Any attempts at conversation are futile, and Sam's sick of it, his mouth knit into a tight line, exploding into random outburst of "Dude, seriously!" and "It was just a stupid game!" before remaining on the receiving end of silence for two hours of brain-numbing monotony.

Reaching their resident rundown motel, the pair dumps their stuff at the foot of their beds wordlessly. Dean forages for a pistol from his duffle, which he begins to meticulously clean, as Sam sits hunched over on the edge of the opposite bed, fidgeting uncomfortably.

"_What_, Sammy?" Dean acknowledges finally, "Do you have something to say, or is this like that time when I put laxatives in your breakfast..."

"I thought it would be fun!" Sam whinges, realising how pathetic it sounds but choosing to play his annoying-younger-brother card anyway.

"That was _not _fun, not even close. I don't know what you geeks did back in Stanford for kicks, but..."

"That's only because you _lost_, Dean".

Oh God. Dean's face does that thing, where it remains stone cold except for the pissed off twinge beneath his left eye. Dean rigidly turns to face him, directing his full attention on his helpless brother. Sam immediately stops wringing his hands, and wonders why he opened his mouth in the first place.

"Come on, let's be realistic here, Sam. We both know that in 'real life' circumstances, I would have _totally destroyed_ those suckers! Vampires rarely travel in packs, they prefer to work in solitude... did I mention how crappy the weapon they gave me was? The trigger release was way too slow, and the reload..."

The wave incessant blubbering pushes Sam back into the mattress, where he lays sprawled for the rest of the afternoon, allowing the ranting and raving to wash over him.

"And seriously Sam, couldn't you have been a_ bit_ more professional? When you were giggling like a prepubescent school girl, you threw me off, okay? Just because you spent all of college whacking yourself off on the high score..."

"So you didn't have ANY fun?" Sam asks in exasperation, "Because that was the point of the exercise? You know? FUN?"

Dean's blank look is sceptical, and Sam falls back into the bed with a helpless sigh.

"Dude, we _**suck**_ at normal"


End file.
